Edmonton Oilers Are One Injury Away From Disaster On The Back End
Heading into this season there is no doubt that there is a weakness in the Edmonton Oilers lineup and that hole is on the back end. With the Oilers trading away Cody Ceci, losing Philip Broberg to an offer sheet and Vincent Desharnais to free agency the Oilers have lost 3 of their top 7 defensemen. While they were able to bring in Ty Emberson and re-sign Troy Stecher, their defensive core is weaker than last season.
Lack Of Oilers Defensive Depth Could Spell Problems
Even though the top 6 the Edmonton Oilers currently have penciled in aren't terrible and should be good enough to win games for the Oilers there is one thing that could derail the season and that would be a major injury to one of the top 3 for the Oilers. If there is a long-term injury to either Darnell Nurse, Mattias Ekholm or Evan Bouchard the Oilers are in big trouble.
Going into this season I would put the Ekholm/Bouchard pairing as the number one pair and Nurse and his partner would be number two. I would expect the Ekholm pairing would get around 28 mins a night then the Nurse pairing would get around 23 min which would leave the third pairing to eat about 10 mins a night. So, looking at those numbers if an injury was to happen a player is going to need to take a big jump in minutes.
If one of the top 4 are out for a long time is any Oilers fan confident in Stecher playing more than 20 minutes a night? I know for a fact that I am not good with that. While he could play that role for a couple of games, if it starts going into weeks then the Oilers will be forced to look at making a trade.
The Oilers will be making a deadline move for a defenseman, but they do not want to be forced into overpaying to replace an injured player. At the deadline, they would be looking to upgrade a depth spot, not replace a top end dman.
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Their lack of defensive skill was already one of their weak spots, but not many are taking a look at their defensive depth, which is in my opinion more of an area of concern for me. While I know injuries are part of the game and that they will happen, I just hope that there isn't anything serious that happens to the Oilers defense.
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